Current consensus of this seminal group. Although I find their progeny tiresome, the likes of Benjamin and Adorno strike me as deeply relevant. Thoughts? Plz don't just write 'bro, they jews' or variations thereupon.
No.9646
Angel Of History.jpg
2026-05-02 15:43:39
Frankfurt School
No.9647
Anonymous
2026-05-02 19:21:33
haven't read them as seriously as i should have, but i haven't read anything from them i've necessarily disliked. i've read art in the age of mechanical reproduction and the culture industry from those two respectively and specifically, but it's been a long time admittedly. benjamin seems very relevant and interesting, i've been meaning to get around to his essays on radio.
Frankfurt school really solidified the role of philosophy as a hobby -- something to be read for pleasure or to give off a certain mysterious intellectual vibe, not something to be taken too seriously. Critical analysis of art, culture, and politics are the cocomelon of well-educated petty-elite normies. Walter Benjamin especially did a great job of blending these concepts up into a slurry that just about anyone can slonk down without much effort. "Nowadays art is... fascist". What reasonable person could ever disagree? Prophetic. Let's lick his balls for 100 years
No.9687
Anonymous
2026-05-04 13:45:13
Just a heads-up: Martin Jay's book "The Dialectical Imagination" has been the go-to primer for these guys.
No.9694
Anonymous
2026-05-04 15:02:51
Adorno is cash. I swing between finding his writing hogwash, myopic and provincial to revelatory, still-and-increasingly-relevant insight when I read him, which is always a good sign, for me personally at least.
One of the rare relevant philosophy nowadays. I don't know how it is in academia but to me it's alive through Bauman and Byung Chul Han who expanded reification into liquidity and transparency to better explain our times.
Of course, the solutions part is lacking. Honneth speaks of re-cognition which feels like emptying a sinking boat with a spoon (and it stays stuck into words and communication, and I suspect identity politics is its ready-made form). Ellul's conviviality looks like a better bet to me, but I haven't explored enough to say yet.
Of course, the solutions part is lacking. Honneth speaks of re-cognition which feels like emptying a sinking boat with a spoon (and it stays stuck into words and communication, and I suspect identity politics is its ready-made form). Ellul's conviviality looks like a better bet to me, but I haven't explored enough to say yet.
Scott Alexander wrote a post recently about the Frankfurt School. I know SSC is probably very uncool here but I admit to a soft spot for it and it's an easy read.
www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-dialectical-imagination
www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-dialectical-imagination
No.10419
Anonymous
2026-06-06 22:18:51
Scott Alexander is absolutely weird Bay Area nerd, which is to his discredit, but at his best he can write incredibly well. Meditations on Moloch is probably one of the best blog posts of all time.
>>10280
I read psychopolitics ready to fully believe, heart open, and came away feeling totally unconvinced of anything. The particular frankfurty free association that BCH puts on display is no better than the equivalent “theorizing” from people here, or on redscarepod, or at parties in Brooklyn and San Francisco, half-conscious autopilot musings about capitalism and deleuze and adorno and nick land. I have to refer back to my comment here >>9673 — these people don’t take their own writing seriously so you shouldn’t either. It’s philosobabble designed to be read by a mass audience of people who want to feel smart and have their own preconceptions mirrored back at them. Nobody ever truly had their worldviews challenged by Han or Walter Benjamin or Horkheimer or any of the literally-whos of 20th century mitteleuropa
I read psychopolitics ready to fully believe, heart open, and came away feeling totally unconvinced of anything. The particular frankfurty free association that BCH puts on display is no better than the equivalent “theorizing” from people here, or on redscarepod, or at parties in Brooklyn and San Francisco, half-conscious autopilot musings about capitalism and deleuze and adorno and nick land. I have to refer back to my comment here >>9673 — these people don’t take their own writing seriously so you shouldn’t either. It’s philosobabble designed to be read by a mass audience of people who want to feel smart and have their own preconceptions mirrored back at them. Nobody ever truly had their worldviews challenged by Han or Walter Benjamin or Horkheimer or any of the literally-whos of 20th century mitteleuropa
>>10281
"Based on the text, you can infer that the author has likely read none of the primary works by the authors of the Frankfurt School (like Adorno, Horkheimer, or Marcuse). The author explicitly admits that his entire knowledge of the subject comes from a single secondary source."
Wow. To complete the cycle, I didn't read the SSC post, I just asked Gemini what one can infer from the text about his reading.
"Based on the text, you can infer that the author has likely read none of the primary works by the authors of the Frankfurt School (like Adorno, Horkheimer, or Marcuse). The author explicitly admits that his entire knowledge of the subject comes from a single secondary source."
Wow. To complete the cycle, I didn't read the SSC post, I just asked Gemini what one can infer from the text about his reading.
>>10430
he's a blogger and it's a book review. he read the book that he's reviewing. not really a massive own.
he's a blogger and it's a book review. he read the book that he's reviewing. not really a massive own.
>>10427
Sometimes I wonder if the occupation of the reader isn't what matters most. In some social strata the only way these ideas might exist is as social currency, but professionals I work with use BCH to feed and change their practice: some act suddenly gets another framing and its implications are clearer, so activity can actually be built upon intent and not only be the result of the current dogma (optimize, be efficient etc.).
But I admit these words have little value because I won't go into details/doxx myself.
>>10430
Yeah, it's a critic of a book critiquing FS.
Sometimes I wonder if the occupation of the reader isn't what matters most. In some social strata the only way these ideas might exist is as social currency, but professionals I work with use BCH to feed and change their practice: some act suddenly gets another framing and its implications are clearer, so activity can actually be built upon intent and not only be the result of the current dogma (optimize, be efficient etc.).
But I admit these words have little value because I won't go into details/doxx myself.
>>10430
Yeah, it's a critic of a book critiquing FS.
>>10432
>>10433
Just one example, he writes:
> While Adorno, Horkheimer, etc were doing insane obscurantist art criticism, Herbert Marcuse was sitting around thinking "Wait, I thought we were supposed to be Communists here."
Horkheimer didn't write art criticism. That's already a strange falsehood. Maybe he was thinking of "Dialectic of Enlightenment", but that's philosophy of history. Plus, judging authors you have never read as insane obscurantist is intellectually lazy. I have read a lot of Adorno's art criticism in German, it's neither insane nor obscurantist. This passage is making Scott look like a spiritually obese Redditor.
>>10433
Just one example, he writes:
> While Adorno, Horkheimer, etc were doing insane obscurantist art criticism, Herbert Marcuse was sitting around thinking "Wait, I thought we were supposed to be Communists here."
Horkheimer didn't write art criticism. That's already a strange falsehood. Maybe he was thinking of "Dialectic of Enlightenment", but that's philosophy of history. Plus, judging authors you have never read as insane obscurantist is intellectually lazy. I have read a lot of Adorno's art criticism in German, it's neither insane nor obscurantist. This passage is making Scott look like a spiritually obese Redditor.
>>10437
Now one wants to admit that today's "scientists" have little to no knowledge of what used to make a well-rounded scientist or even citizen (humanities, literature, politics, social science...).
Now one wants to admit that today's "scientists" have little to no knowledge of what used to make a well-rounded scientist or even citizen (humanities, literature, politics, social science...).
No.10439
Anonymous
2026-06-07 16:36:18
>>10450
That's part of the issue: I work in the humanities, and I seldom meet hard scientists, but whenever I peak on the STEM side, I can see they reinvented the (square) wheel and feel very happy with themselves (just pick any humanities adjacent topic here news.ycombinator.com and read the comments).
The separation STEM/humanities is an aberration, so I get what I can from the other side, and sometimes I meet people open to hear from this side, but it's not common in my experience. So each side lives with its idea of the other side. We have the pedant using "quantic" to mean "uncertainty"; they have the smug ones coming up with a stupid version of Bourdieu's habitus 60 years late, wondering why no one thought about it before. Whenever I tried to share some element, it usually is dismissed because "not really scientific".
I once had to explain to a physicist that artworks and beauty weren't universal, and he was outraged by the idea (I tried to explain that color could have different meanings in different cultures (white doesn't mean purity everywhere etc.), but that was hard to hear for him, because he was entertaining retrograde ideas about art, I'm guessing by lack of education).
Of course Not All of Them©, but enough that I don't really bother anymore.
That's part of the issue: I work in the humanities, and I seldom meet hard scientists, but whenever I peak on the STEM side, I can see they reinvented the (square) wheel and feel very happy with themselves (just pick any humanities adjacent topic here news.ycombinator.com and read the comments).
The separation STEM/humanities is an aberration, so I get what I can from the other side, and sometimes I meet people open to hear from this side, but it's not common in my experience. So each side lives with its idea of the other side. We have the pedant using "quantic" to mean "uncertainty"; they have the smug ones coming up with a stupid version of Bourdieu's habitus 60 years late, wondering why no one thought about it before. Whenever I tried to share some element, it usually is dismissed because "not really scientific".
I once had to explain to a physicist that artworks and beauty weren't universal, and he was outraged by the idea (I tried to explain that color could have different meanings in different cultures (white doesn't mean purity everywhere etc.), but that was hard to hear for him, because he was entertaining retrograde ideas about art, I'm guessing by lack of education).
Of course Not All of Them©, but enough that I don't really bother anymore.
>>10452
HN greybeard discourse is still miles ahead of here or any place that trends younger just because of the gap between generations. How much time have you actually spent on HN (not just "peak"ing)? Sounds like something you heard about secondhand on another website like reddit and incorporated it into your framing of the world. The "gap" between STEM and humanities is a lie, it may have been true in the mid to late 20th century to an extent as education became more specialized, but it has always been exaggerated and an illusion. The real gaps lie in social intersections: geography, income, age, and culture.
HN greybeard discourse is still miles ahead of here or any place that trends younger just because of the gap between generations. How much time have you actually spent on HN (not just "peak"ing)? Sounds like something you heard about secondhand on another website like reddit and incorporated it into your framing of the world. The "gap" between STEM and humanities is a lie, it may have been true in the mid to late 20th century to an extent as education became more specialized, but it has always been exaggerated and an illusion. The real gaps lie in social intersections: geography, income, age, and culture.
>>10458
I actually regularly visit HN and have for years, it's a good window into STEM. Indeed, it is better than the rest of the Internet, yet it still barely reaches high school education most of the time.
Then my high school education happened last century and I am European - as you say, there are others factors at play.
I actually regularly visit HN and have for years, it's a good window into STEM. Indeed, it is better than the rest of the Internet, yet it still barely reaches high school education most of the time.
Then my high school education happened last century and I am European - as you say, there are others factors at play.
No.10479
Anonymous
2026-06-09 11:18:29
>>10464
In humanities. You exemplify what I am saying.
In humanities. You exemplify what I am saying.
No.10492
Anonymous
2026-06-09 14:23:58
Reviving the thread bc there is a new review of AJA Wood's new book on the origins of the term "Cultural Marxism" in The Compact.
Convinced me to pick the book up. Didn't know about the LaRochelle connection. Anyone read Rockhill's new book? The Compact article basically calls him a third-worldist which seems categorically wrong.
Convinced me to pick the book up. Didn't know about the LaRochelle connection. Anyone read Rockhill's new book? The Compact article basically calls him a third-worldist which seems categorically wrong.
No.10515
Anonymous
2026-06-11 12:55:17